Beach clean-up hailed as big success

Volunteers gather with their collection of rubbish at Kaikati's MacMillan Reserve after a regional clean up organised by Envirohub. Photo/supplied

A huge community clean-up on Saturday on seven Western Bay beaches gathered the equivalent of three full trailer loads of rubbish.

''I was absolutely stoked,'' Envirohub's Sustainable Backyards Month events organiser Diana Donker said today.

More than 150 volunteers turned out for the clean-up that also coincided with Seaweek.

The 50 bags of rubbish when emptied yielded 25 per cent of recyclables. Mrs Donker said the nine cubic metres of rubbish also included 11 tyres, two chairs, a child's trike, a punctured inflatable boat, a car battery, an oil drum, barbed wire, gym equipment and various metal objects.

She said a lot of the people who gathered rubbish on Saturday already went the extra mile to help keep beaches clean.

''The amount of people that came to help was fantastic.''

The event was a first for Envirohub and the first time that a beach clean-up day had happened on this scale.

Mrs Donker said the volunteers who helped put the event together included members of Keep Tauranga Beautiful, the Maketu Ongatoro Wetland Society, Super Grans, Katikati Boating Club, Omokoroa Environmental Managers, Waihi Beach Environment Society, Enviro Katikati, the Department of Conservation and the Tauranga City and Western Bay District councils.

She encouraged beach walkers to take a bag and pick up rubbish as they walked because once plastic got into the ocean it was picked up by fish and birds.

`''It all comes back to us because we eat the fish. We should all be doing our little bit to keep our planet greener and healthier.''

Beaches cleaned on Saturday
- Waihi Beach and Orokawa Bay
- Bowentown
- Tuapiro Point Reserve
- Katikati
- Omokoroa
- Tauranga/Matua shoreline
- Maketu